Construction product information providers have responded to the demand for electronic delivery
by providing online access, CD-ROMs and DVDs but these solutions have limited usability and are generally
incapable of supporting prevalent and emerging industry practices. The product library implementations attempt
to replicate the functionalities of the paper versions, which serve for independent specification and procurement
but gives little thought to teams and tools integration through support for automated information exchange and
sharing. The IFC standard provides common terminologies, technologies, syntax and semantics necessary to
address present and future compatibility and integration issues, hence IFC-based implementation of product
libraries have good prospect for meeting the industry requirements. This paper reviews current product
information delivery methods and examines the applicability of the IFC and other standards. The requirements
for IFC-based construction product libraries are identified and an architecture for realising the requirements
was presented.

Description:

This article was published in the Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon) and is also available at: http://www.itcon.org/2003/15